The present invention relates to systems where components are de-coupled or do not communicate directly with one another, and more particularly to a method and system for registration in a de-coupled environment or system.
In a purely decoupled environment, components are unaware of each other. There is no exchange of state information directly between controlled components. The operation of each component occurs in a completely ‘stand alone, pluggable’ fashion. Existing components can be removed or new components can be added to the system without affecting any other existing component. Each component operates independently and has a direct interface only to a central manager or controller. No other formal interface is required between sibling components. Each component reports status to and receives status from the manager. The manager broadcasts state and transition information to all registered components. Each component takes its appropriate action and reports back to the manager.
Many such systems may use the concept of a listener. In these systems, components may register with the manager to ‘listen for’ events or other messages of interest. In current de-coupled systems, there is no means to ensure that a component expected to publish or broadcast an event or message is, in fact, alive and capable of doing so. Quite possibly, components may be listening for events or messages that can never happen because the would-be source has failed to initialize or start. Other components that are listening will never know that a required component is not there. Without some means to guarantee registration, there is no way for the manager to know about failed components.